22 Website Designs Inspired by Apple.com

It’s well known that Apple is one of the most creative and innovative companies in the world, so it’s no wonder that many software companies and web designers would choose to follow Apple’s style of branding.

The Apple website is one of the best websites out there due to its ease of use, functionality and the beautiful environment that it creates.

I looked at websites that use one or more design elements inspired by Apple.com. Some of these sites sell Mac software and apps, so it makes sense for them to keep the same Apple look and feel. Consider this though: How many software companies that develop for Windows, choose to brand their websites to look like Vista? I have included a few screenshots of the Apple website, just in case you haven’t never seen it before.

Apple.com

1. Icon Designer

2. iSlayer

3. Versions

4. Checkout

5. Small Transport

6. MacRabbit

7. 280 Slides

8. Disco

9. Warehouse

10. Cha-Ching

11. RapidWeaver

12. DeskLickr

13. Tangerine!

14. 1Password

15. Jumsoft

16. Roxio Toast

17. CandyBar

18. Cultured Code

19. Anxiety

20. Tao Effect

21. TaskMate

22. The Invoice Machine

Chad Mueller owns and runs the design inspiration blog; Inspiredology. He is also a freelance designer who enjoys working on websites, blogs, logos and anything to get his creative juices flowing.

You can clearly see why Apple’s design is used as inspiration so much. It’s just so crisp, clean and usable!

As far as websites go, it’s definitely one of the best I’ve seen at selling it’s products and the sites you have showcased here, while they do look “nice” will never be as impressive as the original Apple design!

http://www.thisinspires.me Brandon Cox

I only wish that my HP PC was inspired by Apple! Cool list, makes me envious.

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com Walter

It’s never too late :)

michael evans

I’m not seeing the connection for the first three layouts…?

MCV

try taking off your sunglasses

Spunk

Knob.

http://www.twitter.com/chadengle Chad Engle

I think you could call that “sexy web-designs inspired by apple” those are all amazing and engaging. Rich web design for the win! :)

http://benjacob.in Ben Jacob

Pixelmator [http://pixelmator.com]
GOG.com [http://gog.com]
Has direct relations with apple.com most of the sites you listed has only minute relation like, may be a button, an icon or something similar

http://dpencilpusher.wordpress.com dpencilpusher

sorry to digress, but your avatar; I’ve seen this style come up very often online these days, who started it? where can I get it? where can I see more?

http://www.inspiredology.com Chad

There is no direct connection with the first 3 examples. The examples are there to show the current Apple site. The connection is from anything Apple, software applications, some of the sites use the iTunes carousel. Very subtle gradients, great use of white space. Heavy use of beautiful icons.

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com Walter

#1: has huge Apple like icon on homepage
#2: iSlayer has search box and menu like Apple.com at the bottom of site (scroll down)
#3: Icons and text layout (scroll down)

http://www.loriskumo.com Kumo

Nice,
I have to confess that I actualy follow very often Apple design (web or OS interface) on websites and even sometimes print. Its clear, user-friendly and simply beautiful !

James

I hesitate to use “inspired by” on this one, but http://www.gibson.com is an example of a fairly blatant rip off.

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com Walter

Interesting one – but the footer section is bigger than the entire site?! :)

ray

Haha, That is awesome! i wonder how much Gibson paid for that site.

http://dvint1.tumblr.com Scott

Funny how all these inspired sites are mostly for apps that run on apple products :)

http://www.jamesdeangelis.com James De Angelis

I’d had to agree with what others have said, the first 3 are a pretty weak comparison…

I find Checkout slightly dubious with how close it is, but on the same token it’s an original layout and very well designed so you can’t take that away from them!

http://codingtricks.blogspot.com khurram

Well all of them look good ones. Bus yes inspired by apple site.

Trisnadi

to me, RapidWeaver site looks closer to Vista scheme than Apple’s (particularly the top nav)

http://www.jonbergan.com/ Jon Bergan

Although some of the examples aren’t the best, I still think its a good roundup and a fabulous source for inspiration if you’re interested in designing a site with similar design elements. Some of these have already made it into my personal inspiration library!

Thanks :)

http://benpedroza@ueuo.com Ben Pedroza

All great sites. Apples typography style is a good example to follow on any web site

http://www.chris-wallace.com Chris Wallace

Yeah, I thought it was funny how many are actually products related to Apple. I guess that makes it ok to be unoriginal.

Some people get so inspired that they plagiarize what they see in a very bad way.
I love apple website. I hate designers emulating those effects. Why not start using our brains as the apple graphic designers did?

floor

sure. show us what you got?

http://www.stumbledigg.com TJ @ StumbleDigg

Cool list. Liked it a lot. Keep more and more list like this coming.

Regards
TJ

http://wearesolid.com Andrew Rossborough

@ Scott

I was going to say the exact same thing

@ James

That is as blatent as I’ve seen in a long time!

Decent collection of “nice looking” sites, but as many are for apple apps as Scott said, they’re meant to blend in with the corporate image. An inspired site would take inspiration from the design elements but be for something completely unrelated.

http://www.steaf.com Steaf

Would you all have a look on my MacWeblog, which is an Arabic blog about Mac.

thats all it is. take a basic css site, add a rounded corner background image and photoshop the buttons and there you have it. I doubt most of these sites took their influence directly from apple, it’s just this ‘web 2.0′ craze. And yeah it looks useable and polished but it’s also incredibly lazy.

DESIGN SOMETHING NEW.

Shack

Greetz Jonny,

Appreciate your assistance in referring me to some resources on the net to design a site similar to Apple, i mean training material, tools, forums etc.,

how to do rounded corners
how to apply shines/reflections on every element

http://ifxdesigns.com IFX

Well, everything is apple these days. With the iphone popularity it’s no wonder it’s what’s in with the scene kids. :)

http://web.madeofwin.de Ben

Nice collection, +fav :) Thanks.

http://jgn.me/ Jerome

Hmm, I’m not sure they are inspired by “Apple.com”, they are mostly inspired by the interface guidelines from Apple, but mostly these websites all have their unique and extremely nice looking style.

When developing an application for Mac OS X, you need to follow certain conventions for icons and other UI related stuff so it integrates better with the system. Now it’s hard to create a website for a product with a completely different style than what’s generally accepted in regards to “Apple style.” I’m not saying they all look the same, they are incredibly imaginative in how they create their design within those boundaries!

http://www.logodesignguru.com logo design guru

As usual, always a nice group of websites. thanks for posting.

burgin99

“And yeah it looks useable and polished but it’s also incredibly lazy.”

Yeah! Let’s all make our sites incredible hard for users to interact with so it’ll be *edgy and original*!

http://thewebgoods.com Ben G

Apple rocks! Thanks for the cool post.

http://ifohdesigns.com matt

great post. i guess there could be worse trends to follow, i mean Apple does seem to get it right when it comes to their OS, UI, UX, etc,.

Some sites don’t go for the entire Apple.com theme, but instead use some similar elements, like input, and button styling.

Apple has always lead the way. I see the infuence in the designs, but they still have som origininility to them also. I use some of these applications and I love em. The apps are as good as their designs.

Thanks for all the great feedback, Apple is a huge brand that is respected around the world, it only made sense to try to pay a tribute to that brand, by showcasing many of the websites that love and believe in that brand.

krebaltzer’s journal

I had lots of fun looking over your designs. Thanks for entertaining my grey matter.

I like the apple design, is an universal style I think so. Thanks for sharing this list of website. Best regards!

http://www.sharonzahra.com Sharon Zahra

I love the Apple design, it focuses on whitespace and usability. A site which uses the same concepts of whitespace etc like Apple and which I like is http://www.mediatemple.net/

http://www.myanmardigitalartists.ning.com zaw hlaing oo

I like it…. please sending this tutorial ..brother .
i wanna make like this (sorry for my English )

http://www.velvetant.net/blog Antonea Nabors

Big font, big buttons, big graphics! I love it. Great finds :)

http://www.onedaywithoutgoogle.org ODWGOOG

All are selling Mac’s software, so branding is justified ;)

http://www.dailyblogged.com Richard Ward

While I see a lot of similarities in the Mac and iPhone/iPod software developer websites, for a reason, there are a lot of sites that made this list which have absolutely no resemblence aside from also being fluid, clean and professional — such as:

Warehouse
DeskLickr
Tangerine!
1Password
Roxio Toast
(And others….)

Unfortunately the fact that most of the graphics and screen shots on these sites are Apple/Mac related doesn’t help the fact that Apple.com inspired them. Just like Windows developers taking after the “Vista look” — you won’t see many Apple developers mimicking Microsoft.

I think a lot of these layouts were added to this list just to generate comments and debate. Boo.

asma

Its nice to see people inspired and able to apply it to their product… Its not so easy as it seems .. :)

Shack

Why not start a group project to create a fresh mockup with totally new effects and dazzling design.

http://www.ilovejardin.com James Dalton

I am not truly an apple fan as too people swear they are god-like, however their designs are truly top notch. I love the apple site because it sells their products so well. Just looking at the site makes me want to get a touch….not. It’s still very good, kudos to the designers

Kelly

Might want to check out http://www.gibson.com. I think they actually left Apple references in the source code.

vincent

Does anyone know who designed/developed apple.com?

By the way, not only it is greatly designed, the front end is also well thought out and executed.

http://www.michalmoodie.com.au Michael Moodie

Great Article ! I have so far converted my entire family into mac lovers – and these are just some of the reasons why.

Thanks for the article.. will be sure to go check out anything I have not yet seen already.

http://www.terkoz.com terkoz

I am not truly an apple fan as too people swear they are god-like, however their designs are truly top notch. I love the apple site because it sells their products so well. Just looking at the site makes me want to get a touch….not. It’s still very good, kudos to the designers

http://www.LogoBang.com Web designer

For my money I like #8 280 Slides, I think its very clean and eye catching.

Jonathan

Stating that Apple’s website inspired all of those websites would only make sense if you spoke with the designer(s) and they stated as much. Some of the sites on this list are just well-designed, and are not reminiscint of Apple.com in the least. Apple is not beginning and end of good, simple design — they simply have / have had great designers work for them.

http://www.suite171.com Suite 171

Well-designed sites, looking forward to see more… maybe a new trend?

http://www.finalvisual.net FinalVisual

Nice collections!

http://www.coveractionpro.com Mark

There’s a big difference between a company copy and design trends. These are mostly design trends. Most of us have seen the Apple site more then most sites on the web. So we are more conditioned to Apple’s site. Since most people are used to Apple, this creates an advantage for marketing. Creating a similar look and feel creates a since of safely and similarity in the visitors eye. Customers will be more likely to buy from you because you look mainstream, trusted and a feeling of “I’ve been here before”. Specially if it’s a product for Apple. Then make it look like Apple. What are Apple users used to seeing? Quality, friendliness, shinny objects, screenshots…whatever. You’ll need to meet that criteria. The work has already been done for you.

it strikes me that at least 3 out of 22 are designs made by an agency called Sofa (www.madebysofa.com) and are, like you mentioned in the intro, product websites for Apple savvy products. Apart from some design details, I really don’t see many similarities between those and Apple.com.

Thijs van Exel

oh, and I do not work with them ;-)
the Sofa websites above are: Disco, Checkout and Versions.

Speaking of the Apple website, I happened to drop by and download the Quicktime player on Apples website, how come IE is on their preview? *Sigh*

http://nutsh.com Adrien

macheist.com is also a excellent “apple-like” design example.

josh

Art for gains sake is inherently derivative. The point of our art is to entice people to buy, commit, convert or become a fan of the idea, product of content. We communicate in the most efficient, effective way we can. Creating a design that takes advantage of the trust consumers have in existing brands or otherwise isn’t plagiarism as some more idealistic designers seem to think, rather it is smart and highly effective.

That doesn’t mean we should copy others, but we’re not each an entity unto ourselves. We’re building on the work of our predecessors.

After all, no one here invented the circle or any of the other shapes we use every day. Evolve art, and be merry :)

(and lets face it… who among us hasn’t had a client ask for ‘apple style’)